


Canon vs. Fanon

by spae



Series: Dangerous Hobby [3]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Abby helps with that, Characters Reading Fanfiction, Gen, Grumpy Jethro Gibbs, Humor, McGee experiences author woes, McGee needs to wise-up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-12 04:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15332217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spae/pseuds/spae
Summary: McGee did not mind interacting with his fans, but he did not really understand them.Prompt #3: Scared





	Canon vs. Fanon

"Hey, Abby?"

Tim waved an offering of Caf-Pow at her from the doorway. 

"Can I use your desk? Gibbs is like a bear with a sore head today; I'm waiting for this program to complete and he's barking at me every two minutes to see if it's done yet. I need a place to hide out."

"Sure, McGee." Abby spun around and liberated the offering from his fingers without stopping, evidently busy.

He nodded his thanks to her back and wandered through to the inner lab, where he sat down at her computer desk. His laptop, once plugged in, revealed it was going to take another forty minutes at least to decipher the information Gibbs wanted, but upstairs, where Gibbs glared at him every three seconds, it would feel like forty _hours_. Tim set a timer and began to check his emails, but there was nothing work-related; just a few notifications from the _Deep Six_ website.

When the site had been set up, Tim had been asked if he would mind contributing to a regular _Ask the Author_  column; feeling generous  and flattered by the request, Tim had replied that he would love to do it. Of course, not all his fans' questions were particularly discerning or indeed, focused on the parts Tim wanted to talk about. In fact, he was learning to avoid the trolls who made outrageous suggestions about what he did in his free time with various kitchen utensils, but for the most part he managed to overlook these petty annoyances because the majority of his fans were clever people who enjoyed his books for what they _were_ , without complaining about what they were _not_.

Today, he had only one question which he needed to answer - _Did you mean to write McGregor as such an indispensible and competent character? He comes across as a shameless self-insert, since no one can solve cases until he comes along to help them - aren't you embarrassed by his lack of depth?_ \- and he mustered up some patience to address this, without revealing his personal grievance that the editors had removed a lot of McGregor's presence and characterisation in favour of focusing on Tibbs and the cases. While the novel was from McGregor's point of view, his own ideas of what were engaging anecdotes and observations apparently didn't quite fit with the tone they were going for. Tim wrote a terse response to his 'fan', giving the standard disclaimer that all the characters and their flaws, real or perceived, were fictional and in no way related to persons living or dead, including McGregor. He'd made the argument to Ziva and Tony enough times, but it was losing strength. Still Tim had admin privileges on his Q&A page, so he left the response and closed the thread, moving on to look at something else which caught his attention. 

It was a current _Hot Topic_ thread entitled _Canon vs. Fanon_ , which had a great deal of comments and a larger number of hits.

He clicked on it and immediately began frowning as he started to read; his expression growing more and more grim as he read further.

"What are you _doing_ , McGee?"

Tim blinked, and looked away from the screen; Abby stood in the doorway with a quizzical look, test tubes trapped between the fingers of her left hand and a circular stand in her right, feeding them into it.

"You were glaring at the monitor and muttering to yourself," Abby clarified. "Like a madman."

"Nyuh," Tim's eyes flicked back to one of the entries, wondering why people couldn't just read a book and enjoy it. Why did they have to pull it apart?

" _'Gemcity never fails to highlight the flaws in every character (except McGregor) while overlooking all of their positive traits (except Amy's). Fanfiction writers at least explore the possibility that other characters have value as humans, something which Gemcity doesn't bother considering.'_ " he read aloud.

And someone had responded, apparently thinking they were defending him.

"And then this: _'It's just characters, you idiot! It's not like Gemcity would write about real people like that! SO WHAT if he's created stereotypes? It's not like he's the only one to make sweeping generalisations about cops and feds. I think the fact that he made Agent Tommy handsome is proof enough that he didn't make him a complete stereotype - after all, he had to give the guy SOMETHING to work with when dating so many women with THAT personality! And Lisa's hot, so -"_

"Stand aside, let me see."

Abby pushed away his wheelie chair and glanced at the screen, scrolling up and down. "Oh," she murmured, her mouth twitching; she looked at him sympathetically.

"You probably shouldn't read that," she told him wisely. "It's like when you read the reviews for something you _thought_ was a fun karaoke night with some weird and wacky dudes, and it turns out you crashed a live Rocky Horror performance ... Not that I've ever done that," she added virtuously.

"Was it really that bad?" Tim asked dejectedly as he reached the bottom of the page to discover there were six more pages full of comments.

"You've gotta look at it objectively," advised Abby. "This is a _fan_ site, filled - for the most part - with fans of the _concept_ , rather than the actual content. Most of these people write fanfiction to correct what they see as your failure to deliver. Half of these fics explore the backgrounds of the characters to explain the way you wrote them. And look at this giant _happy ending_ tag - loads of fics are gonna be focused on giving your characters a happier future than the alcoholism and loneliness you seem to have planned -"

" _HEY_ , I do not -"

"Shush, Timmy, I'm not done yet. For example, there's a lot of hurt!Tommy fics here because you wrote him as such a shallow person; people don't like their characters so one-dimensional, so they give them some conflict and challenge them to grow through their stories. You realise you were pretty mean to Tony, writing him like a worthless womanising shitbag, right? Just because you do not understand him, McGee, does not mean that none of us do!"

"It's not _entirely_ Tony-based," complained Tim, _sotto voce_.

Abby just looked at him.

He looked away, before changing the subject.

"You seem to know a lot about all this stuff, Abs," he looked at her suspiciously. "Tell me you don't write fanfiction."

"And so what if I did?" she sniped back. "I don't have the time, but I do read some," she smirked. "Some of them are very entertaining."

"I'll bet," Tim grimaced, thinking of some of the tags he'd seen. "I wouldn't know."

She raised a surprised eyebrow. "You've read the forums, but never read a fic?"

"Yeah?" he answered warily.

Abby gave him a sunny smile and backed off toward her workspace. "Then what are you reading _this_ thread for? It's not like you have any basis for comparison, is it? If you don't read or care about the fics, why are you worried about making comparisons with fanon?"

He watched her whirl back into whatever she was doing back in the outer lab, wondering if she meant he should stop worrying about his writing and let it go, or start reading fanfic and argue properly. The timer interrupted his musings, and any conclusions he'd been coming to would have to wait.

Tim closed the _Deep Six_ website tab to concentrate more fully on analysing his results with a critical eye. Half a minute later, he was striding through the lab, calling a goodbye to Abby before almost colliding with an angry Gibbs.

Gibbs stared grimly at him as Tim performed contortions to prevent Gibbs' coffee from spilling on either of them or the floor. 

"Where the _hell_ have you been, McGee? I'm _waiting_ -"

"I was just coming to deliver the results," Tim began his explanation as he backed away. 

Gibbs stepped forward to the plasma screen, clearly awaiting pictures for said results.

Some few minutes later, Tim got a _Good job, McGee_ , which calmed him down enough to relax a bit.

"Tony says hello, by the way," Gibbs paused to buss Abby's cheek before he left, and was promptly stopped by an indignant squawk.

"WHEN?" she demanded. "Where was he? How? Why did you -"

"I talked to him earlier in MTAC," Gibbs said patiently. " _Because of work_ , Abs. McGee didn't tell you?"

Tim had the grace to look embarrassed.

"No. He did _not_ mention it," she looked at him ominously, before turning back to Gibbs. "What else did he say? Is he coming home soon? Is he all right? Did he look good? Is he getting my postcards?"

"Well, he's still crazy," Tim interjected, before moving so that Gibbs was between him and Abby's suddenly clenched fists. " _WHAT?_ He called Gibbs _Dad_. He wanted us to feed the chickens .."

Abby beamed at Gibbs, and he gave her a wry smile.

"I'm leaving McGee to explain everything," Gibbs said drily, throwing his empty coffee cup into the trash. "I will need him later though, so no lasting damage, Abs."

He sauntered out, calling the elevator before permitting himself a small grin when McGee screamed.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Written a million years ago.


End file.
